This just in:
Is it OK for a writer to seek another agent for their second book, while the first book remains with the first agent, regardless of whether the first book sells or not? Of course, it’s taken for granted that the writer informs the agents about each other. In other words, is it OK for a writer to have different agents for different books? We’re talking fiction here.
In a word: NO.
Let me put it this way: NO.
You can’t have multiple agents. It doesn’t make sense unless you’re writing in different genres and your agent only specializes in one. For instance, I am working with a young adult novelist on his adult material. He has a YA agent for his fiction. But this is the exception.
One agent per customer, please. There is so much involved in representing a writer; you would be crazy to split up your properties and by extension how they were then handled in Hollywood, abroad, etc. It would be extremely confusing to the publishers as well. And, ideally, you hope to develop a relationship with your agent over time such that he or she fully understands you, your work, your needs, etc.
What happens more frequently is that a writer will become disenchanted (euphemism for disgusted) with his agent and want to make a change. He will talk to prospective agents before “breaking up” with his current agent. He wants to make sure there’s someone to catch him before he leaps. I totally get this. It’s a shame when a misunderstanding doesn’t get aired and leads to a break-up, but usually people do what they need to do for cause.
Maybe what you’re asking for is some new vision of the future where clients can have multiple agents like Tiger has multiple blonds. For the moment, I think monogamy in client-agent relationships is best. That said, some relationships stop working and it may be time to move on. For whatever reason, you no longer believe that your agent is the best advocate for your work. Trust has broken down. Sometimes, an agent feels she has done everything for a client and nothing is working. Just as authors need to change publishing houses to get a new start, clients and agents sometimes need to make a new start.
I’ve lost a handful of clients over the ten years I’ve been an agent. Some dumped me. I parted company with a few. It was always awful. Often painful. Even when it’s for the best, it sucks. When I was a young editor, a powerful agent told me that she never fired clients. She just stopped returning their calls. She waited for them to get so angry that they fired her; her reasoning that it would have been far worse for them to have been fired by her. Oh, merciful tyrant, you are too kind. WTF. Is there ever a good way to break up?
Filed under: Agent, Client | 12 Comments »
Let’s get back to tupperware and how it relates to writing. When I studied and wrote poetry, I loved using the forms that most of the other students balked at. I loved writing in quatrains, and sonnets, and my magnum opus, my personal Howl, was a sestina, ” Calories and Other Counts”. What I loved about form was that it forced you to make decisions, it put you in a box, and half the fun was seeing if you could get out. It fit or it didn’t. I’m not saying poetry is easy, but there was a template if you wanted it. Or wanted to break it.
Since I’ve been writing and revising an Oscar speech my whole life, here’s my Blog version: I want to thank my readers most of all, lurkers and commenters alike. Though I love the commenters a little bit more. My mother used to say she loved us three girls equally, but I read Lear and knew she was lying. Sorry, off topic. I want to thank the bloggers who I’ve read over the years and who inspired me, the agent bloggers who have been very kind to me with tips and links. I want to thank everyone who has linked to me. To the folks who wrote in questions and subjected themselves to my answers. To Hillary Moss who set up the site. To the folks who participated in my fakakta surveys. I want to thank the people in my life who have to hear me say things like: today in my blog, or I have to post, or blog blah blah blah. And Riverhead Books and Becky Saletan who green lit the revision of FFTT. To Vivian who is so Swift. And to my bro, LC. And August, the month in which I was born. And to a poet who got so angry with me that he up and left when I wouldn’t or couldn’t help him. This has been an incredible experience. Dad, (now I get teary and look to the heavens) this if for you. (I say this shaking my imaginary statuette at the ceiling.) You never really believed in me as a writer and that gave me all I needed. Thank you.
I’ve always been a little turned off by the expression, “finding your voice.” Was it lost? Behind door number three? Stolen by fairies in the night? And yet, we know when writers have one and we know when they don’t. My question is: is it something you can find or is it native. Can you locate it? Alter it? Develop it? Deny it? Can you choose it? Can you eat it? Can you fuck it?
What is it exactly: voice? Is having a voice and writing well the same thing? Can you write well and not have a voice? I think so. That’s a lot of what gets submitted. Is voice writing well + distinction? I think voice is like a stamp, a brand, a thumbprint. Even your physical voice. Is this Betsy? This is she. I know some of the commenters on this blog by their voice.
Is voice an extension of personality? Is it channeled? Marshalled? Arrived at? Discovered? Is it a put on? A fashion show? A daily special? All dressed up with some place to go? Or is it fuel, gas, highly oxygenated blood? Where will it take you? What happens when it goes?
I used to write in the crawl space beneath the stairs when I was 10. I had a diary with a thin gold rule around the edges and a lock that a butterfly could pick. In there I confessed my hatred for my best friend, the ongoing torment from my older sister, my great love of hot dogs. When I think of myself down there, the blanket and pillow I purloined from the guest room, the shadeless lamp, I could really cry. Why did I need that makeshift bunker? What was I so desperate to express and why did I have to hide it?
Betsy Lerner 